It’s 2:30 a.m., and the house is quiet. This house is quiet— not like the last one.

The old house always had noise. Subtle, yes, but constant— a language of creaks and sighs, branches tapping glass, timber pressing against timber, plaster cracking like distant footsteps.

It was an older house, always in motion, slowly pulling itself apart as it settled into the hillside.

This newer house is better built. No cracks. No hillside. No thousands of pounds of earth urging it to move.

The quiet is both discerning and disconcerting.

I sit in the shadows, tilting my head toward invisible sounds— but hear nothing.

Their shape, their distance, gone. My reference is lost. And somehow,

I feel less safe in the not-hearing.